The cystalization of the elite consciousness increases the distance between masses and the elites and therefore the economy increasingly becomes centralized so as to improve control of the mass society from what emerges from the smashing of the middle class driven economic core of modern or contemporary liberal democratic society. The main transmission belts of this system function through the appendages of the mass media, articulating canned ideas that seek to imitiate the real, through special effects modeling and trickery. Thus we get a mainstream media that often seems to be pointed in direction that is biased, reflecting the interests of the parent company that publishes the magazine or newspaper or broadcasts from a certain radio or television station. If these mass media outlets were to go against the status quo, the business elements in the community will instinctively turn against them, since to turn against the status quo is to question the hegemony of business across the nation. In many mainstream press articles it seems as if the writer is in fact reporting for the chamber of commerce or maybe acting as a local affiliate for Wall Street, instead of reporting for the population as a whole, or more importantly for the truth that we are supposed to stand for as a species of creatures directed towards a higher state of existence. Special interest politics is defined by those who have an interest to forward which is usually at the expense of the common interest or the true national interest or human interest.
A higher state of existence must be based upon truth, since if it is built upon fallacies, then we cannot honestly call it a higher state of existence. It seems to me that many people are brainwashed to think that they are really thinking. When in reality it is that they are told what to do and how to percieve the world. So what really matters to people is irrelivant since they have not been educated in a way that would allow them to truly decide for themselves on that which is really important. So they are programmed to think that all that really matter is that the money keeps flowing for all the creature comforts that create the illusion of the AMerican dream. But is this all that AMerica stands for. These people who are the most fervent capitalist, would have us think so.
People lining up as Best Buy, in assembly line fashion, waiting to exchange their cash for goods at the cash registers. They smile gleefully in assembly line fashion, just like skinner's pigeons of positive reinforcement. Work faster more stuff more stuff more happiness and success. And finally we will have arrived! to the ammerican dream a capitalist's utopia. The consumer's gleeful smiles reflect a aura of contentment. They are addicted to the allure of sonsumer culture. It is as if by some miracle, that the purchase and ownership of the consumer items in their possession will convey to them somehow a mysterious sort of salvation.
I find that interesting, because even though I cling to no single belief system, I hold dear to me the conclusion that I feel they all reach, which is that the only true salvation comes from the heart. Sure, it helps to have basic necessities like food, water, and shelter, but when taken to extremes they just give us the luxury of affluence which we adopt incrementally as vital necessities, when it is that we can do quite well without them. And we are mind numbed in this allure of affluence so that we assume that happiness can be bought on the stock market or the commodities exchange or mega©mall much the same way we buy stereos and cars. In fact we seek to convert material commodities into a better quality of life that will give us contentment and happiness. We attempt to buy quality with quantity.
This lifestyle embodies the extreme of idolitry becuase it emphasizes accumulations of goods as a status ssmybol of success. IN other words we quantify success with material and scientific measurements that gauge a person's wellªbeing. That is when material objects in themselves become iconifed as the ideal to a fulfilling way of life. You achieve the power to purchase those goods and you have made it to the dizzying heights of the American dream.
We idolize the material things we consume and see that consumption as the solution to things that ail us. However it says in the bible that you cannot have it both ways, being an idoliter of the illusions of the material lifestyle money and all that it can buy, while speaking of the sacredness of life today and in
America sees it as a predominantly Christiam or religious nation under false pretenses. We claim allegiance to God in a very superifical way maybe by going to church on sunday and then suddenly all accounts are paid, and we can go about living the life of a decadent materialist while reaffirming the significance of God in one's life. Materialism is not harmful in itself the material world bring much to our eyes. Physicality can be a pleasurable thing that should be done without shame, when it does not harm another. It is when become addicted to cartain aspects of the material world that in effect degrade the world as a whole so that we can have our addictions satified that is unjust and evil. For the choice cannot be made of both you cannot satisify the desires of the lower premoridial self in a uncontrollable and excessive way while striving for a higher sense of divine responsibility that is necessary for justice in the human coommunity. As the history of humnaity shows people are weakened by the allure of money and so in a society that is dominated and dictated by dollars how can we really have a systems that is independant of that force of social corruption.
The reality is that we call ourselves Christians just reassure ourselves. OUr real God is Mammon the GOd of money power and domination. It is this god that smybolizes the true order of our world and Mammon is otherwise known as Satan. The world order is not really realistically based on achieving a actual good society it just convinces people through its propaganda so that people buy into the lies as they build their fortunes and are not dismayed in a way that would affect their buying mood in negative way.
People are apathetic because they understand the truth behind the lies. Many know and we have probably known how things really are and how they desperately need to change for a long time, since we stepped out of adolescent innocence into the reality of the cold, brutal world of injustice and illusion. It is this coldness and the immensity of it that keeps us from pushing forward with all our energy for a just based on human justice and ecological justice as well. We fear death but even more we fear the suffering that we may have to deal with if we aggressively challenge the establishment.
Clinton sacrificed much for the establishment, he exuded a powerful aura of confidence, which went far to pacify the American people. Few people it seemed sacrificed so much to the illusion of the American dream as much as Clinton. He pitched for it every day speaking of the robust economy and the prosperity that it has given us and how grateful we should all be, as to the great amounts of happiness it has given us.
How the cries resonate within us the billions of humans that inhabit the earth, to say nothing of the animals and the plants that we displace as we search for the American dream. Despite and maybe even because of these cries, the world seeks to follow the American model of development, much as we had wished. We do not have to see the world as inherently evil place, for there is much good in it, but the fear that we hide in our heart keeps the honest part of us from being real with people, and from appreciating the good in the world.
Contrary to neoliberal conventional wisdom, it is not money more money from a growing economy that will save us, on the contrary, it will be our undoing, but it is reinventing of the real intent of our loving spirit that will save us. When we stop doing things for our careers, and for money, as we struggle on the treadmill of the capitalist consumer culture as we stop buying into the crass pretentiousness of it all, believing it is otherwise: legitimate and justified--contrary to our intuitions--we will have began down the path to righteousness and truth. The main obstacle to this path of realization is the illusion that money gives people a real state of contentment. Money does not ever really give us contentment or happiness. What it does give us is the resources to survive another day in society made predatory and competitive by the pathetic myth that the hoarding of money and the accumulation of the power it brings will provide us with a sincere feeling of contentment.
Critical thought is controlled almost without a thought. People are not actually conscious that they operate along modes of self-censorship. Possibly this focuses along the idea that bias is perceived to be a creature exclusive to those who are critical of this present manifestation of capitalism. Consumption and greed are the essential elements that make capitalism so successful in the modern world. If people were to make actually and effectively aware of the possible global implications of their lifestyles, they might radically alter their lifestyles and habits. Economists and the rest of the establishment may fret about how this might affect the state of the economy. Politicians claim that less consumption would not only reduce the GDP but also put people out of work.